Jill Spector

Biography

Jill Spector is an interdisciplinary artist and independent art worker who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Her practice encompasses artmaking, performance, design, teaching and collaboration. Spector’s artistic background blends performance and sculpture, suggesting mimicry and roles to be played, and places the viewer into relationships between bodies and objects.

In 2017, Spector founded In Favor Of, a consultancy that grew out of her desire to partner with others and expand the potential of their work. As an advocate and guide, Spector works with artists and designers to nurture moments in the creative process where collaboration, creative growth and community collide. In 2021, Spector, along with artist and activist Julie Weitz, co-founded Tzitzit Project, a collection of tzitzit, a ritual garment, specifically designed for women, trans and gender non-conforming Jews.

Spector’s sculptures and collages were featured in Made in L.A. 2012 at the Hammer Museum. Her work has been included in the exhibitions “Biomorphic Forms in Sculpture” at the Kunsthaus Graz and “Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils,” an exhibition organized by artist Diana Thater at the Pinakothek der Moderne and Nationaltheater in Munich, Germany.

Spector’s photography has been featured in publications including Valeria Napoleone’s Catalog of Exquisite Recipes and SchindlerLab.org published by the MAK Center. In 2016, Spector created “The Editor’s President: Models and Mock-Ups for Elaine May, Nora Kaye and Eileen Gray,” an installation at JOAN in Los Angeles.

In 2015, Spector and artist Bret Nicely founded TARP, an ongoing series of performances and installations in and around their empty swimming pool in Altadena, California. In 2016, Spector formed Designing Women, a conversation series by women who own and operate businesses in the fields of art and design. Spector has collaborated with choreographer Rebecca Pappas and NoExit Performance on PARADE 2017: Garfield Park, in Indianapolis, Indiana, with writer SoffiStanassi on New And Unknown Thing, a performance inspired by Christine de Pizan’s “The Book of the City of Ladies” in Los Angeles. In 2020, she created a variety of costumes for artist and activist Julie Weitz’s My Golem project.

Spector was named one of the Orange County Contemporary Collectors 2013 Fellowship Artists and in 2019 awarded an Inquiry Fellowship from American Jewish University, Los Angeles. Her works are included in the Zabludowicz Collection, London, the Kunsthaus Graz and The Museum of Modern Art. Spector is an alumna of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (B.F.A. 1998) and the Graduate Art Program at ArtCenter College of Design (M.F.A. 2005).

Education

• M.F.A., ArtCenter College of Design
• B.F.A., Syracuse University